Movies and More

THERE IS ANOTHER: Our house was alive with excited buzz at 4:45 this morning. By 5:05, we were out the door, headed to Pacific Science Center, where the region's biggest and best IMAX - 3D screen resides. There, we saw the new "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story."

We got there nice and early for the 7 a,m. show, so we could get the perfect center seats. Breakfast was popcorn and a Star Wars book. 

For fear of spilling spoilers, I'm not going to say anything about the movie right now. ...But boy do I want to! 

SPEAKING OF MOVIES: Wednesday morning, CJ and I attended a members-only screening in Pacific Science Center's other (smaller) theater. It was a 'rough' director's cut, and the movie company was apparently hoping to get some feedback. 

I'll let CJ tell you a bit about the film.

Sometimes, I will watch a documentary film at the Pacific Science Center, usually in the Paccar Theater, one of two theaters at PacSci. While the last "documentary" we saw at PacSci was horrible (Voyage of Time: The IMAX Experience), we decided to go to PacSci again to see a film they were showing a rough cut of, known as Amazon Adventure.

Amazon Adventure (It had a subtitle, but I can't remember it and the subtitle was really stupid) in an in-development documentary made by SK Films, a Toronto-based film company founded in 1998. Amazon Adventure primarily tells the story of Henry Bates, a man from England who traveled from London to the Amazon Rainforest in 1848 in an attempt to prove that species could change from one form to another, an idea that contradicted what was taught in England at the time. At the time, if you lived in England, you were almost certainly told that every species on the planet had been created in their current form long ago, and would never change.

Henry Bates went with Alfred Wallace, a friend of his, to look at life in the exotic-to-Englishmen Amazon Rainforest and see if there was any evidence for the idea of species changing there. For years, Henry worked very hard in his shed and boat trying to find evidence for his theory. An important subject that would come up in search for evidence of species changing is mimicry. To my knowledge, mimicry is a specimen or species changing shape or form in order to avoid getting killed by predators. For example, a butterfly might change its colors to resemble the colors of a different, poisonous butterfly in order to deter predators.

During his voyage in the Amazon, Henry collected thousands of different specimens to catalogue for his collection. Over the years, Henry would collect specimens of the same species, and noticed how their appearances would change over time. He speculated that the species' appearances would change because of mutations, and specimens with beneficial mutations would survive to breed. Eventually, Henry had collected enough butterfly specimens of one species, and he was able to create a sequence of the corpses that showed a logical progression from one pattern on the wings to a different, presumably beneficial one.

Back in England, Henry was apparently ridiculed for believing that species could change forms or emerge from other species over time. This was demonstrated in a scene where he reads scathing remarks about him in a newspaper on a train. Back in England, Henry was able to get in touch with Charles Darwin, a much more well-known proponent of the theory of evolution and Henry's "childhood hero".

Apparently, Henry's research was a major contributor to research about evolution.
I found Amazon Adventure very interesting, and I would like to learn about more people like Henry Bates.

Like CJ, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. What a pioneer Bates was, leaving London for parts unknown. We are definitely going to read more about Bates - for instance, I'd love to review some of his field notes!  In all, Bates was in the Amazon for 11 years. His enormous body of work included crucial contributions to evolutionary biology, discovering the phenomenon "Batesian" mimicry.

While watching it, I wondered who funded the project. On the film's Web page, I found a press release from 2014 noting, in part: "Pacific Science Center is proud to announce that it has been awarded a significant grant from the National Science Foundation for Amazon Adventure to conduct research that will study the effect of the giant screen on learning outcomes, support SK Films’ production of the giant screen Amazon Adventure film, and create an accompanying educational outreach program and materials. The research will be conducted with the participation of key personnel from Rutgers University and Arizona State University and will involve GSCA members from the Marbles Kids Museum, California Science Center, Maryland Science Center, Ruben H. Fleet Science Center and, of course, Pacific Science Center."

Interesting! No wonder we got to see a sneak preview there!

By the way, the guy on the movie poster is not Bates. He's an actor. Here's what Bates looked like.

FUN ZONE: A couple of days ago, we made a fun pit stop at one of our favorite stores, Archie McPhee. It's full of fun stuff like bacon toothpaste, yodeling pickles, a Bigfoot air freshener, and so much more. 

The have fun graphics on the sides of their store. CJ and Annabelle darn near got sucked back up to the mothership near this one. 

WATERY GRAVE: We have some unhappy news to report. Annabelle Fish, our pet of 12 plus years, has left us. Her tumor had grown steadily for the past few months (perhaps even years), and a couple of days ago, the poor thing couldn't even really swim or feed any more. :(

After a couple of days of mourning, we hit a couple of pet stores, looking for another fish to keep our sole survivor company.

Annabelle picked out a 35 cent beauty at Petco by our home. Let's hope the new fish gets a good 12-plus year run. And we know not to name it after a family member this go round. ...